The Wild Adventures Of Di Central Eating

The Wild Adventures Of Di Central Eating

When I wrote this book in 1992 it was intended as a series of adventures for children. I dedicated it to my daughter Rebekah. I had always had it in my head that the inscriotion read: Rebekah this one is for you but looking now at the original manuscript it reads TO REBEKAH WITH ALL MY LOVE.

Although I had been writing since I was a teenager it was not until 1992 when I first had a book published. That book was PETER'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN PEN.

It should have been published soon after my first book but quite simply I did not get my act together and it was not published until 9th March 2017 on Amazon.

While I intended it as a book for children it is in truth something for adults, it is an adult 's view of a child's life.

It is fiction although each of the adventures is losely based on something from my own childhood.

There are ten adventures:

The Wild Adventure Of Di's Central Eating

Di's First Fish

Platingum Plated Pitchforks

Pathfinders In Space

Rock And Roll Superstar

Nipper

Football Hooligan

The Great Trolley Race

And Then There Were Three

The Gypsy's Curse

Of all the books I have written, I have thirty-two on my Amazon Bookshelf, The Wild Adventures of Di Central Eating is really frustrating. I think this is my second best work behind The Bridge House yet nobody ever reads it !

Unlike myself Roald Dahl is an international best selling author. However, I honestly believe that his books would not be a success without the illustrations of Quentin Blake. I have tried a few times to find an illustrator for this book but without success. Oh well.

I am proud of Di Central Eating even if nobody ever reads it.

Monday 4th January 2021:

DAY FOUR:

Monday 4^th  January 2021:

Yesterday evening I watched a film I had recorded a few days ago, Forest Gump. I had seen this years ago but this was special. The plot and storyline are surreal, the characters unique, the entire film is beautiful. In these difficult times Forest Gump lifted my spirits.

At the far end of Pier 39 in San Francisco you will find a fun shop: The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Although the 1967 Summer of Love dips into the story Forest Gump does not go to The City By The Bay. It is a happy, friendly and fun store, if I am ever able to return to San Francisco in the future I will most certainly visit this special shop.

Let me now share Smile of the day:

Don’t be afraid to start over.

It’s a chance to build something better this time.

8.18am I have delivered SMILE CARDS and FUN QUIZ SHEETS to Dreamsai to put in this week’s food boxes, to my local doctor’s surgery and to University Hospital Milton Keynes.  Later in the morning I am heading to the Post Office with more smiles for many more people.

Yesterday was a good day for book sales so both prongs of the project is going well.

Following my serendipity moment I began writing JUKE BOX JURY. Yesterday I penned 2,537 words. Within this I have just been speaking about Ritchie Valens who died aged seventeen after only eight months in the music industry. All these years later people still listen to his music.

Yesterday we lost Gerry Marsden from Gerry And The Pacemakers. What a loss. I love his music and most certainly will be writing it into Juke Box Jury. Inspired by Gerry I have started to write a Football Crazy quiz sheet. This will go out to a wide range of people as well as appearing in the book YOU DO NOT NEED A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ.

Rest Gerry, your music has filled our hearts for more than half a century, it will do so for another half a century.

Let’s take a peep at what was happening on 4^th January across the years.

4^th January 1951 The Chinese and North Korean forces captured Seoul. As a fan of MASH this is an important date for me. I was only one year old at the time but I have the box set of MASH, I watch one episode each evening then when I get to the end I simply start again. Readers will not how the Korean War creeps into several of my stories.

4^th January 1958 Sputnik One, the first artificial Earth satellite launched by the Soviet Union last year falls to Earth. Yesterday I was working on a word search I WISH I WAS A SPACEMAN where Sputnik is one of the words to feature.

4^th January 1965 Poet T S Eliot died age seventy-two. I am a fan of T S Eliot but I have to say I do not remember his passing.

4^th January 1967 Donald Campbell the racing driver and world speed record holder died. I remember so clearly his passing.

So how much writing did I do yesterday ?

Diary                                            1,432 words

Juke Box Jury                              2,537 words

By The Pricing Of My Thumbs      610 words

Pub Quiz                                      279 words

TOTAL:                                       4,858

 

To achieve one million words across the year 2021 I need to average 2,740 a day so I did OK yesterday.

What about tomorrow ?

Wait and see.

That would be a good point at which to sign off for today but I have to record my frustration and anger at the government’s failing to protect schools, pupils and staff. When you are out driving on the road you will see people who will flick their indicator on when they are actually making the manoeuvrer. I call this retrospective indicating. The biggest retrospective indicator in this country is Boris Johnson. Please Mr Prime Minister, PLEASE, stop retrospective indicating and get your act together. Protect our schools, protect our teachers, protect our children. I hope with all every fibre of my being that future editions of this page will not have to report school deaths.

Yesterday a further 54,990 cased of the virus were recorded and another 454 deaths. How many could have been avoided if the government had acted more positively and more quickly ?

Now I will bring today’s page to an end. I broke off writing for a moment two paragraphs ago. I could hear the bin lorry outside collecting sacks of rubbish. So many times I have said and will continue saying how hard our binmen work. I stopped writing to go outside and thank our fantastic binmen, to thank them with a gift and to thank them with smiles. THANK YOU.

Now I will sign off. Speak again tomorrow.

Dave

DAY THREE:

Sunday 3^rd  January 2021:

Good news and bad news.  The good, the bad and the ugly. Indeed yesterday was a bit of a case of the good and the bad and the ugly. I am, of course, ugly but that is not what I mean. Well not entirely.

Yesterday the UK recorded another 57,725 COVID-19 cases, the highest ever daily total. Within this a further 445 coronavirus-related deaths were also reported. These are not just numbers, these are people. Behind these people are families suffering, there are NHS staff, doctors and nurses under terrible pressure as they care for the people, real people behind the numbers.

Today our country is facing schools reopening and numbers escalating to a point where those I have shared in the above paragraph will be small by comparison. As is the norm the government is dithering to the point where even one of its famous U turns would be too late.

I have said so many times that my heart bleeds for teenagers who are having these important years ripped apart. Better to have this situation, as bad as it is, than to have children, teenagers and teachers included in the statistics of those contracting this evil virus and those who are being added to the death toll. In my opinion no school should be allowed to open until every pupil and every member of staff have been vaccinated.

Thought for the day:

Each day on my website and on social media I am sharing a thought for the day, better explained as Smile for the day. This is today’s smile. Maybe not tonight, tomorrow or the next day but everything is going to be OK. That is true but to make anything OK it must have love and support from people.

Love and support from people like you, love and support from people like me.

Across the three hundred and sixty-five days of 2021 I am trying to get people around me to blow kisses and make people smile. One million kisses and one million smiles. I am also going to write a million of one million words and publish these within a minimum of twenty-four e-books on Amazon.

Do you want the good news or the bad news ?

When it comes to smiles and kisses the good news is there is no bad news. Yesterday I spent time putting ready some special things for special people.

Among these were seven hundred and twelve gifts of love from my local pet supermarket, gifts of food and gifts of toys for pets in need. Tomorrow I will take these to my local food bank distribution point. The Food Bank is working flat out trying to meet the need people have to put food on their tables. Within these families are pets who are in danger of going hungry. This is actually the second batch of gifts given by Jollyes Pet Supermarket and there are many more gifts of love to come during the year.

Dreamsai Milton Keynes every week takes food parcels to people in need. We are now giving smiles to be added to the parcels. Tomorrow I will drop off fifty quiz sheets and fifty Smile Of The Day cards to be included in next week-end’s love.

I have a Quiz For Cops and Smile Cards tomorrow to drop off to our local community police teams.

I have another quiz, one for NHS staff, to send tomorrow to University Hospital Milton Keynes, Stoke Manderville Hospital Aylesbury, Luton and Dunstable Hospital and one local medical centre.

I am working on many quiz sheets which will go to a wide variety of people in all kinds of different situations. I plan to put them all together within the next few weeks for residents and staff in care homes. Here are a few questions from the latest quiz I am working on: BRITISH INVENTIONS

·       What game did Brian Gamlin give us ?

·       Who invented the internet ?

·       What did Scottish doctor and missionary Henry Faulds invent to aid crime detection ?

·       What sporting game did William Webb Ellis give us ?

On 11^th November last year I published a book of quiz questions: A QUIZ A DAY KEEPS OLD AGE AWAY, I think it is likely to be around Easter when I bring all of these questions together in a new book WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ.

Books, twenty-four of them. Words, one million of them. Now for some bad news.

This bit of 2021 almost came to an end on 2^nd January ! 

The best book, in my opinion, I have ever written is THE BRIDGE HOUSE. That was published in 2017. I made the mistake of illustrating it. Amazon is not great at formatting illustrations so the plan was to re-publish the 76,309 words minus illustrations this year. Yesterday Amazon blocked publication saying I could not put the same text on-line twice. As I wrote my four books telling of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s I always intended to combine them into what I called a QUADRILOGY. 111,517 words which Amazon said I could not use !

Frustration turned to anger and I shouted at Amazon. Fearing I may be told to get lost I hastily apologised before I was struck off the author list. That was the bad thing, a loss of 187, 826 words. Good news, I have not been struck off.

Time to change the subject for a moment.

On this day:

Within this I am only including dates during my lifetime, I was born on 3^rd November 1950. You may like to have a bit of fun researching dates within your lifetime. Preferably I am including things I can remember.

·       3^rd January 1956 a fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower. I can not say that I remember this, well I was only five years old.

·       3^rd January 1961 The United States broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba as the Cold War got colder. I grew up during the Cold War, it was part of everyday life.

·       3^rd January 1977 Apple Computer was incorporated. Can’t say I can remember this. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

·       3^rd January 1969 racing driver Michael Schumacher was born.

·       3^rd January 2014 Phil Everly of The Everly Brothers died age seventy-five. I love the music of The Everly Brothers, A sad day.

Back to books and one million words.

I had been looking forward through November and December last year to writing my book BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS THE DIARY OF A SERIAL KILLER. 1,308 words into the introduction and the story is not dark enough. Moving on to the five murders the story will contain I was thinking this would bring the darkness to the story I need. However, I feel to include these in the direct way planned would not be dark but sick and as such this would ruin the book. I awoke at 1am today with the thinking for a different way to twist the plot. Bad news turned into good news.

Back to schools, back to teenagers. I had been working on something to encourage teenagers to write to their grandparents and via a programme with care homes to become pen pals with residents. Also at 1am I ripped that up !

I am going today to start a new book which I will write alongside my crime thriller (I hope it will thrill.) This is called JUKE BOX JURY A BIT OF FUN FOR TEENAGERS YOUNG AND OLD. I am thinking this will probably take 30,000 words to complete and something I can dash off in ten days. It will ONLY be in e-book form and will be designed to be read on a smart phone.

WHAT ! A smart phone !  Everyone knows how much I hate smart phones. AH !  The book is designed to give teenagers something fun to do, it is designed to link teenagers with their grandparents. The book has to be an e-book and has to be read on a smart phone as the teenagers will be asked as it goes along to dip into YouTube and research on Google. AND……………………..

Within the operation of the book will be words – an instruction: USE YOUR PHONE SMARTLY !

He he he.

The good, the bad and the ugly. UGLY. Well that’s me.  I have just raced round my house and counted the number of mirrors on wall of different rooms. FIFTEEN and there to confirm that I am ugly.

Speak again tomorrow.

Dave

What are you up to today ?

SATURDAY 2nd JANUARY 2021:

DAY TWO:

Saturday 2nd January 2020:

Well now the New Year is well and truly started. When it comes to getting their act together Boris and his mates are operating somewhere around 5th November, Mr Fawkes, I've got a box of matches if you need them.

So how was your Friday ?  How was the first day of 2021 for you ?  If you are reading this diary page, be it on the day I scribbled it or sometime in the future can I suggest you may like to a diary of your own. It’s fun. I am going to repeatedly suggest over the year that you do just this. As we live though such terrible times the more people who record their feelings the better. I deliberately say feelings and not activity, yes tell people what you are doing but more so tell them how you feel about it all.

With that let me share how I am feeling right now.

I went first thing this morning to Morrissons Supermarket. I needed some envelopes for Smile Cards and Smile Quiz Sheets to send to different people. The store’s website said it opened at 6am. I was there for 6am as were about half a dozen other people. The website clearly announced a 6am opening. However, the store management had not told the staff who were busy stocking shelves ahead of a 7am opening. When one guy showed staff the website via his phone we were allowed in and out via the staff entrance.

During last year, yes 2020 is last year now, I was not particularly worried for my personal safety but that has all changed now. I have always followed the government guidelines but now at the start of this new year I am worried for the safety of my health and my loved ones. I was at Morrissons deliberately early to avoid other people.

No matter what anyone may say there are people do not follow the rules, I am not talking about mass gatherings and flagrant breaches but general every-day failings. I see older people out and about not wearing masks properly, the cover their mouths but pulling masks down to expose their noses. They do not observe proper social distancing. I do not feel safe around people like this. These are supposedly vulnerable people yet they act in such an antisocial way.

I do not feel safe right now, I do not trust the government and never have as it fails to act quickly enough. Remember Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ?  Remember he words: You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning !  This could be re-written: You turn if you want to but you’ll never turn as many times as Boris does !

I do hope we will see another U turn. Keep all schools closed until pupils and staff can be vaccinated. With this new strain of China Virus it is essential we lock down all gatherings where the virus can put two fingers up to mankind.  Yes, my heart bleeds for the teenagers who are having their lives ripped apart right now, important formative times destroyed by the China Virus. However, better that than their lives ended ! 

Boris wake up and U turn !

Change the subject On this day:

2^nd January 1963 in The Vietnam War the Viet Cong won its first major victory.

2^nd January 1974 former Hollywood actor Ronald Regan was sworn in as Governor of California.

2^nd January 1981 one of the largest British police investigations ended with the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe, The Yorkshire Ripper. He died last November, a truly evil man.

Yesterday I began work on my book By The Pricking Of My Thumbs which is part of my one million words challenge for 2021. The full title of the book is By The Pricking Of My Thumbs The Diary Of A Serial Killer. I am just one thousand or so words into the introduction. That introduction is set in April 2020 and will have covid-19 aka China Virus at its centre. I’ll not say a lot more at this point other than I want to make this a very dark and sinister tale.

Last week our local pet supermarket gave me loads and loads of gifts for my Pets In Need appeal supporting the Food Bank. If families are struggling to put food on the table and are having to rely on the Food Bank they are hardly going to be able to feed pets. Boxing everything up ready to take to the Food Bank on Monday I counted seven hundred and twelve items. Isn’t that beautiful.

When lockdown first came in last year I said that I hoped we would emerge into a society with a different mindset. Instead of failure being the norm we needed failure is not an option. That did not happen and I doubt it will in 2021. What we did see in 2020 were hundreds upon hundreds of small acts of kindness and love. I am not talking about those the media snatched hold of and manipulated for its own agenda but small, genuine and personal acts of love. Acts of love like those I will be taking to the Food Bank on Monday.

Yesterday I wrote a total of 4,896 words towards my one million challenge. I’ll talk more about the total in days to come. Today I want to spend time writing quiz and wordsearch sheets to send out to care homes – residents and staff, NHS staff and key workers. I am going to write a quiz SALUTING OUR SERVICEMEN and a wordsearch CALENDAR GIRLS (AND BOYS). As I write a quiz I pop it into the book I expect to publish for Easter: WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ.

Nine hundred ninety-nine words here written for today’s diary entry. Time to sign off I guess. Time for YOU to start writing your diary.

Speak again tomorrow

DAY ONE: Friday 1st January 2020:

DAY ONE:

Friday  1st January 2020:

Happy New Year. Welcome to 2021 and good bye to 2020 the year that never was.  Yep, here we are on Friday 1^st January.    Hey, have you made a  New  Year  Resolution ?  I have. I am going to go outside my home more times than does my wheelie bin.

No, seriously this year my resolution is to write no fewer than one million words and to publish them in a minimum of twenty-four e-books on Amazon. Every word in every book will blow a kiss of love and a smile to someone across the year. You know about that don’t you, and more of it later.

When I was a young man my mates and I had a bit of a tradition where we saw the new year in on top of a mountain. One year it was Thorpe Cloud at the foot of The Dovedale. The next year we headed a little further north to Kinder Scout before twelve months later going for the big one, Snowdon. Snowdon by name and SNOW by nature. Not that it would have been open at midnight but the café on the summit was completely covered in snow, we sat on the roof. Flippin’ cold I can tell you. With the care closed I never did get to eat an Eskimo Burger.

Midnight on 31^st December 1999, where were you and how did you see in the Millennium ?  I believe that I am one of two people, the only two people, who saw the new year in twice. I did honestly, Me and one other. No, that other person was not Doctor Who, with or without his Daleks.

We saw the New Year in, in the US state of Michigan then crossed the state line into Illinois which is one hour behind Michigan so saw in 2000 twice.

But that was two decades ago, here we are now in the third decade of this century. A year ago I announced 1^st January 2020 as the start of The Roaring Twenties, a decade of fun and good times. How wrong could I have been. It was not a lion that roared on Wednesday 1^st January last year but a dragon, an evil Chinese dragon by the name of Covid Nineteen.

Ok – books. During this year of 2021 I plan to challenge the world record set  by Barbra Cart land who in 1976 published twenty-three books. For a bit of fun I am going to write a minimum of one million words and publish them on Amazon within a minimum of twenty-four books.

In December 2016 I started writing a blog, most days I scribble something but always a bit irregular. Checking statistics I see that as of yesterday I have written 1,290 editions and have had a total readership of 113,663 readers. That’s an average of 88.11 per edition. Hardly viral.  For 2019 I am going to start something a bit new, I am calling this Dave’s Diary. Max Robinson is my pen-name, my real name is David – Dave to my friends.

I will write an entry every day with the words contributing towards that one million total. At the end of each months I will publish everything in e-book format then in one year’s time Saturday 1^st January 2022 everything can come together under the title LIFE IS A NOVEL SO START WRITING. That, however, is 365 days away. What about today New Year Day 2021 ?

Last year I announced 2020 as being the start of a new decade, the Roaring Twenties. Got that a bit wrong didn’t ? (I’ve already said that haven’t I ?  Still no harm in repeating it !)

There were fireworks sounding at midnight last night, not many but they were there. An hour earlier there were fireworks, far more than at midnight, had someone got their watch not set properly ?  NO, eleven o’clock in England, midnight in Europe. Those fireworks were celebrating our leaving the European Union. I do so hope that on 1^st January 2022 I can report fireworks and celebrations the like of which nobody has ever seen, fireworks and celebrations announcing the extinction of the Chinese Dragon and its evil pandemic.

In the UK yesterday FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND, NINE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO people fell ill with the virus. FIFTY-FIVE THOUSAND, NINE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO !  NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOUR people died !

That does not help me feel optimistic about a mass firework celebration in a year’s time.

The BBC, I am no fan of the BBC – is anyone a fan of the BBC – reported mass street celebrations in Wuhan, China. Celebrations for the New Year. I do not feel comfortable with that, I think it is inappropriate news reporting. How many people have died across the world from the virus which originated in Wuhan ? To applaud these New Year celebrations, at least to my way of thinking, is an insult to all who have died, an insult to all families who have lost a loved one.

I want to be optimistic about 2021, I want to shed the pessimism I am feeling right now – 6.28am Friday 1^st January 2021. I want to do my little bit across the coming year to raise the spirits of people. I want to push the pessimism aside. These words are the start of my writing one million and publishing twenty-four books on Amazon. Orbiting the words I want one million kisses and one million smiles to not only turn my own pessimism into optimism but to help one million others to do the same.

With that I think it is probably time to draw this first diary entry to a close but first let’s have a bit of fun, tongue in cheek fun, as I share with you some of the New Year happenings in days gone by.

On This Day

I am not going to include this feature in every edition of my diary but on various days I will do a little bit of research and write about events happening on this day over the past seventy years of my life:

1^st January 1973. Before this date here in England this was not a public holiday, or a bank holiday as we called them back then. Nobody really celebrated the day, it was a normal working day. When I left school and began a career in retail management we had the January Sale but it did not always happen on 1^st January. Moving into teaching this was part of the Christmas holiday ahead of the new spring term so I didn’t think that much of it when in 1973 the day became a bank holiday aka public holiday.

1^st January 1958 – a day which within my view of history has gone down in infamy !

On this day The European Economic Community was established !  How terrible a thing to have happened. It was actually known back then as The Common Market and while the United Kingdom declined to help set up this dictatorship it did try several times in later years to join. President Charles De Gaulle famously and repeatedly said NON to the application.

1^st January 1973 Denmark, Ireland and oh dear me, the United Kingdom signed up to the European Dictatorship.

In subsequent years other nations ripped up their sovereignty: 1^st January 1981 – Greece   1^st January 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden. On 1^st January 1999 the Euro currency was introduced across eleven member nations. Thank goodness we did not adopt that folly.

But now here we are on Friday 1^st January 2021 and as far as we are concerned the European Dictatorship is history. We are a free sovereign country again. YIPPEE !

One last date. 1^st January 1985 the first British mobile phone call was made by Michael Harrison to his father Sir Ernest Harrison, Chairman of Vodaphone. The invention of the mobile phone is something to be applauded but that which it has turned into, the zombie phone is to be derided. The smart phone has to be the world’s worst invention. It is a compensatory aid which is destroying society. If you break your leg the hospital will give you a crutch to help you walk – a compensatory aid. If you have less than 20/20 vision you wear glasses – a compensatory aid. If you can not hear properly you can use a compensatory hearing aid. If you are thick, stupid, dull and boring you can use a smart phone – a compensatory aid !

Speak again tomorrow….

David – to my friends Dave. You are my friend aren’t you – D A V E